End of the Week Musings

It is Friday evening. The end of another school week. Today was our homeschool community day. We have off for Good Friday next week then only have two more community days this school year. I think I'm going to tutor one of the classes next year. Right now that sounds fun to me, but ask me at this time next year!



We are full steam ahead with planning the Superkids trip to China. I leave in 3 weeks from today! My suitcase is already full of donations and gifts. I love the generosity of people! We have a wish list on Amazon if any of you would like to help provide items for the children. The things are being shipped to Fannie Wilks right now since my suitcase is full!

The donations started arriving yesterday!

Remember when I mentioned the advocacy camp we are planning for the same time that our team will be in China? We have had a wonderful response and have 9 participants going! I am so excited about seeing how this all unfolds. We are having our third conference call with participants this coming week. I know almost everyone who is going from online contacts and have met a couple of them in person. It is so fun to be doing this together!

Another thing we are doing right now is planning a fundraiser for Oasis Chorale. The invitations just came today and will be going out early next week. It is fun to see it coming together, especially since we are planning it with friends that we don't see very often, so it gives us a reason to communicate more than we normally do. I'll share more details about the event in a couple of weeks.

Keith and Douglas are working tonight. Tax season means long hours for both of them.

My health is improving some, I think. It has been a very hard winter in that regard! I've started a couple of new medications that seem to be making a difference in how I feel. I'm also trying very hard to get my iron and vitamin D levels where they should be. This is always hard for me, but I'm pretty sure it should make a huge difference in how I feel if we can pull those numbers up!

It Really Was A Dream Come True

You know how it is. When you look forward to something for a long time there is always the chance that it isn't going to be as great as you have built it up to be in your mind.



My friend's daughter, whom I met in China before she became my friend's daughter, really hit it off with my children. Seeing her in my home playing with my children was beyond amazing! She is sweet and articulate and altogether as awesome as I knew she was the first time I met her in China back in 2013.





The Superkids event was gorgeous! It looked so well put together and there were so many people who are special to me there. To see the children I love so well featured as the stars of the evening was so touching to me. Their little faces on the slideshow, their videos in the featured video, it was all so inspiring!





The families who shared their stories did a wonderful job of helping everyone understand the significance of the role Superkids plays.

Like A Dream

I am a quiet, introverted person. I don't have very many friends. It takes me a long time to feel like I know someone well enough to speak openly with them. So when one of my friends visits it is a big deal. Especially when it is a friend from Texas whom I never expected to have the privilege of hosting. Add to that the fact that her daughter is one of my dearly loved "Superkids" and you pretty much have a too good to be true situation.

But the tickets are purchased and plans are laid. Tomorrow at this time, God willing, my friend and I will be solving the entire world's problems together. We are good at that.

On Friday we will travel together to NYC to attend the Superkids Gala where we will see the wonderful people I go to China with and the ladies from the NYC Gladney office. All in one place! With a photographer there to document it all! :)

To think of Kelly, Keely, Chelsea, April, Leta, Wendy, and Gongzhan all being at one location... Well, let's just say, it is this girl's dream come true.

P.S. Try to say Kelly, Keely, Chelsea five times in a row and see how convoluted it becomes.

Our Week

This was one of those weeks that felt as if it had barely started and then it was suddenly over. Between appointments and homeschool community day it felt pretty busy all week.

She came and crawled in bed with me and the light and shadows on her face were so beautiful!

One evening Keith called and said, "I want to come home now and take you out for supper." Now I'll take a date night any time, but an impromptu date during tax season! Now that is something to get excited about!



Eliana recently rediscovered an old leapster game and has been playing and playing with it. It is so perfect for her right now. She is getting lots of spelling practice!


I got a new laptop this week and am deep in the learning process of moving from Windows to a Mac. I was pretty excited about trying out Lightroom and Eliana was more than happy to pose for me. She is such a sweetheart!




I am starting a new medicine which is a little rough to adjust to, so I think the next couple of days will need to be slow paced while I adjust. From what I've read it normally takes about a week to get used to it. It is a little miserable now, but I'm hoping it will be worth it in the long run!

So that was our week. A lot of normal with special moments sprinkled throughout, and the special and the normal getting all smooshed together until sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. Just another week at the Martins

A Little Star-Struck

Back when I was first buying a camera and had decided to try to learn photography, I contacted Nancy Meyer from Ordinary Miracles to ask her opinion on what camera and lens I should buy. Then I signed up for a mentoring session with her. And another one. As she has released each of her new photography and photo editing classes I have taken them. I've ooooed and awwwed over her gorgeous photos for several years now.

Last year I finally got to meet her in person and found out that she is as wonderful a person as I thought she would be. We are both Jesus loving adoptive mom photographers. AND WE ARE GOING TO CHINA TOGETHER! Oh yes, we are! I have to admit, I'm a little star-struck at the thought!

Then there is Martha Osborne. She started the website RainbowKids, which is a huge site for advocating for waiting children. She has been advocating for children for years and is an adult adoptee as well as an adoptive mom. Again, when I met her in person, I found out she is a wonderful person who is just fun to visit with. AND WE ARE GOING TO CHINA TOGETHER! I have to admit, I'm a little star-struck at the thought!

I am traveling with many other amazing, talented people whom I admire greatly. But you see, I'm the Superkids photographer and waiting child advocate, so it is just an amazing opportunity for me to travel with these two ladies who have so much experience in these areas. I keep thinking things like, I can't wait to see how Nancy handles that lighting situation... and Won't it be interesting to hear what Martha has to say about that...

So I'm a little star-struck. But mostly I'm just excited, and feel so privileged to learn to know so many incredible people who are willing to fly to the other side of the world in the belief that we can change the world for the children we meet.

A Snapshot of My Life

My days have been so busy recently and the poor old blog is one thing that doesn't have a real deadline or call me or demand my attention, so it gets ignored. That is until some of my sweet, faithful friends start noticing that I'm ignoring it and sending me messages to make sure we are doing OK. We are doing well, and I so appreciate your concern!

Let me tell you about the balls I'm juggling right now:

Homeschooling. It is going great, but it takes a lot of time. The children are enjoying being part of a Classical Conversations homeschool group this year. Eliana is learning to read and Annika is learning her multiplication facts while Freeland and Casper stay busy with a full workload through PA Cyber School and their assignments for Classical Conversations. Douglas has completed high school and I'm just preparing to send in the paperwork for his diploma! He is working at Martin Accounting, where Keith works, over tax season.

Douglas at his desk at Martin Accounting Service.

Music lessons. I have to include this one because it takes a chunk of my time every week. Freeland takes guitar lessons, Casper and Annika take piano lessons, and Douglas takes violin lessons. It is so nice that Douglas can drive to his lessons on his own now!

Freeland just got a new guitar today!

Superkids. We are planning a trip to China in April (I just got my tickets today! YAY!!) along with this trip we are also planning the first ever Superkids Advocacy Camp. I'm very excited about this! In case you ever wonder what I do with Superkids when I'm not in China, I take care of most of the blogging and waiting child advocacy on Facebook, I'm the monthly newsletter editor, I'm on the advisory board, and I design and change the Gladney ads on RaibowKids. Right now the board is preparing for our big annual fundraiser (you are welcome to come!). Mostly what this means for me is an increase in editing photos since we use a lot of photos for various printed materials as well as a slideshow at the event. Since we have been getting more and more files for children we have started posting more than once a day on the blog. This alone increased my work quite a bit since I not only write the posts but also find and edit appropriate pictures and videos to put in the post.

Oasis Chorale. This doesn't take as much of my time, but I expect the time required to increase over the next few months as we have several events coming up. I take care of online social media type of task for OC. So I post to the Facebook page or the blog. We are also planning a fundraiser for OC in a few months and will be heading up to Maine for the Why Jesus? conference in May. OC is singing at the conference, so I'm pretty excited about attending!

I have a wonderful young lady who comes in a helps me with housework each morning while we do schoolwork. I feel a post about all of the things I,m juggling isn't quite fair without mentioning the things I have help with!

I came home from our homeschool group today
to find my house clean and a clean, cozy
blanket folded on my favorite sofa!

Life. There are always little things demanding a woman's attention! Though we have gotten very good at saying no to a lot of extra curricular activities, there are still things that are constantly needing to be done!


So there you have it, my life in a nutshell! I've had a harder time physically over the last few months and I started seeing a new rhuematologist. I'm hopeful that we can explore new treatment options that will improve my overall health.


Chinese New Year Party

On Sunday we all headed up to New York City to attend the annual Gladney Chinese New Year party. Eliana especially looks forward to these events and she talked about about it all last week. On Friday she got out her Chinese silk dress. On Saturday she counted the hours until bedtime so that Sunday would come more quickly.






And on the ride there she started chanting, "I'm gonna see Chelsea! I'm gonna see Chelsea! I'm gonna see Chelsea!"





She wasn't disappointed. She devoured the food. She was mesmerized by the dances. She reveled in the various activities and crafts.




Of course she wasn't the only one who enjoyed it. I had a pretty great time myself. I got to see several little ones I have met in China, which is always amazing! And I got to see their parents too, which again, is always amazing.




It was such a great day. Happy Chinese New Year everyone!